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Vodafone Ireland are launching the iPhone in a few days time.

However the "standard" iPhone plans won't offer all the features that they could do. If you want "tethering" you're expected to pay more.

Most smart phones have bluetooth, so if you're stuck somewhere with a dodgy internet connection you can use your phone as a modem. For some stupid reason the Apple iPhone does not have this feature enabled by default, so you have to get it turned on by carriers.

Vodafone Ireland want to charge an extra €10 / month for this!! (The cost varies depending on the plan type)

So even if you have a data plan already ie. you're already paying them for bandwidth, they want an extra €10 / month to turn on an option.

How can Vodafone justify this??

According to Vodafone Ireland's Twitter account:

"Tethering on an iphone works differently to that on other handsets, so this service isn't included in your package."

Wow! That's the best non-answer I've seen this week!

One of the other mobile operators came out with this clanger:

"iPhone tethering costs more as it uses a lot more data than traditional browsing on your iPhone itself"

Logic? Zero

Welcome to rip off Ireland!

While I doubt this is Oracle's normal policy, they really do need to teach their staff how to market properly.

Using email to help promote sales is a good idea, but the way that this is being done is incredibly bad and damages email marketing in general.

So far today I have received 5 separate copies of an Oracle "offer" on my work domain. I also received multiple emails a couple of weeks ago in my personal email.

It is incredibly annoying.

Why?

Because I never signed up for ANY of these emails and now I'm being asked to unsubscribe, which in some cases is going to be nigh on impossible as the emails in question do not send - they are only setup to receive only.

So how can I get off Oracle's spam list?

I can't reply to the emails, as they seem to be coming from some automated system.

And judging by the email addresses that are being targetted it's pretty obvious that the email addresses were scraped off websites.

Like a lot of people I've been playing Mafia Wars on Facebook for quite some time. You can usually check your progress once or twice a day, which probably takes a couple of minutes at a time.

Yes - it is addictive

No - Nobody will ever win.

But it's still semi-amusing and keeps me vaguely entertained.

However they may have gone a little bit too far now with their latest addition - SMS notifications.

If you are a player based in the US you will be able to signup to get alerts when you are attacked etc., which means that you will never really have any peace from the game, which I don't think is a particularly good idea for the players. For Zynga, of course, the more time people spend on their platform the more money they will earn.

Here's what the offer looks like:

Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I still see it as being a bad move.

When I lived in Veneto you were used to snow. Over there it was normal. People had winter tyres and / or chains. Veneto didn't come grinding to a halt when there was a bit of snow.

How about Ireland?

Well Ireland does come to a grinding halt.

The short trip from the office to the house this evening was horrendous. Trying to drive when you have zero traction is not "fun". Losing control completely for a few seconds on black ice is scary.

So how long will this last?

Bono, the lead singer of U2, is well known for "mouthing off". I normally ignore his tirades, but his most recent one, which was published in the New York Times, has irked me.

While Bono is entitled to his opinion, as is everyone else, there is a danger that someone as well known as him may be listened to. When his opinion piece is interpreted as "gospel" by some then there is a real danger that someone somewhere might mistake Bono's rambling thoughts for sanity.

Let's look at some of his "wonderful" thoughts:

The only thing protecting the movie and TV industries from the fate that has befallen music and indeed the newspaper business is the size of the files.

Huh? That paragraph doesn't even make any sense.

But it gets better ..

A decade's worth of music file-sharing and swiping has made clear that the people it hurts are the creators -- in this case, the young, fledgling songwriters who can't live off ticket and T-shirt sales like the least sympathetic among us -- and the people this reverse Robin Hooding benefits are rich service providers, whose swollen profits perfectly mirror the lost receipts of the music business.

 Two problems with that.

1. Who gets the lion's share of the profits from record sales? It's not the creator, unless the creator also happens to be the record label ...
2. "Rich service providers"? Most ISPs aren't awash with "swollen profits" and Bono's claims about ISPs is an obvious reflection of his total ignorance.

We're the post office, they tell us; who knows what's in the brown-paper packages? But we know from America's noble effort to stop child pornography, not to mention China's ignoble effort to suppress online dissent, that it's perfectly possible to track content.

Again, Bono's ignorance is simply amazing.
First off, attempting to draw parallels between child porn and file sharing. Is he nuts?
Yes, it is technically possible to track content, but what Bono forgets is that in order for an ISP to do so they have to infringe users' rights.

Bono's hypocrisy seems to know no bounds. Doesn't he spend a lot of his time going on about human rights? So "nasty" countries must be made to behave, but if Bono's bottomline is potentially impacted we can throw the rulebook out the window?

If he actually had a clue, which he patently doesn't, he'd realise how drawing parallels between China's content filtering and oppression makes him look much dumber than normal.

What's even more amusing (and bemusing) is that Bono doesn't see any issue in advocating for content filtering to benefit record labels in an article that also goes on to repression.

Maybe Bono needs a dictionary ...

You can read his really misinformed and hypocritical article here

Related articles by Zemanta

• Bono net policing idea draws fire (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Bono Puts Policing Piracy Into His Next Decade Top 10 (torrentfreak.com)
• Bono calls for internet controls (cbc.ca)
• Bono Hopes Content Tracking Will Help Media Moguls (yro.slashdot.org)

Ikea came to Ireland a few months ago and opened their shop on the outskirts of Dublin city.

Lots of people got excited and forgot all about the recession for a few weeks and went "Ikea crazy".

Now Ikea are running adverts on Facebook.

You'd be mistaken for thinking, like I did, that they "got it".

Here's the ad:
So since it's Christmas and my mother likes Ikea stuff I click on the link.. Which takes me to their Irish site (obviously), but here's what you get:
Translation.
If you want to get an Ikea gift card you cannot buy it online. No. You have to physically drive all the way to their shop.

Since they have so many shops in Ireland, this is obviously a very convenient option, and is one that you will obviously want to choose.

So Ikea are spending money on an online advertising campaign which takes you to a "cul de sac" (their non e-commerce enabled website)

And how about their domain usage? While they own ikea.ie you better not type it into your browser, as it won't do anything useful for you. You'd need to type in www.ikea.ie - yes, it's 1995 all over again!

(and Ikea aren't the only highstreet shop that doesn't "get" the web - try getting a Marks and Spencers gift token if you're in Ireland!)

I use a Mac. A lot of people use Macs.
We're not all weirdos.
Honest

However there is nothing more annoying than a website that explicitly tells you that your choice of computer will not work:



If it was a simple bit of brochureware I wouldn't mind as much, though I'd still think it was a bit odd.

However it's not.

It's the ecommerce site for Argos in the Spanish market. That they've chosen the rather odd domain argos-spain.co.uk is a possible indication of their online strategy. The Argos group owns the domain argos.eu as well, but it's not doing anything at the moment, apart from possibly gathering virtual dust. (The .es would have been a more obvious and better choice, but a Spanish company has it)

Of course the funny thing is that the site does work fine on a Mac. It probably works fine on Linux as well, though I haven't had a chance to test it yet ..

There are other oddities littered around the site, but this one amused me:



Doesn't that look like a selector? Well you'd be wrong. There's only one country in the dropdown, so why on earth is it a dropdown? And why "zip code"? Shouldn't it be "post code" ?

And if you think I'm just some cranky raincoat who sits in his room all night trying to find broken websites, then maybe I should explain how I got onto the Argos Spain site in the first place.

Seems like someone has broken the Argos Ireland site quite badly.

If you try to go to the main page of argos.ie you immediately get redirected to the .co.uk, which isn't much use as:

• all the prices are in Sterling
• the catalogue is different
• it doesn't list the Irish shops, so you can't check if they have the items in stock

Ah well ..

You can get to the Argos Ireland site eventually, but you have to get there via the UK site... and the URLs are "interesting" to say the least ..

Now if only they'd fix that redirect ... 

I'm just back from Seoul, South Korea where I was at the ICANN meeting (more on that later)

Before I left for Seoul I made a point of contacting Vodafone Ireland to check about roaming and handset support, as I knew Korea was a little bit different.

Vodafone assured me that they had a roaming agreement in Korea.

They also told me that that there would be no issue with my iPhone, as it supported 3G.

When I landed in Seoul I turned on my phone and nothing happened. People I was with that were using O2 turned their phones on and were able to make calls and send and receive SMS and use data. Meanwhile I was left with a useless iPhone.

I wasn't in Seoul for pleasure and had arranged various meetings with suppliers and clients. Since I'd given most of them my mobile number I was now left without any sane way of contacting them apart from email (when I could use wifi).

Talk about annoying!

The guys in our offices in Ireland called Vodafone support who again assured them that there was "no issue" with roaming in Korea. Yet I was in Korea and couldn't roam. Neither could two other Irish friends with Vodafone Ireland SIMs. Pretty much every other operator seemed to work fine, so why on earth was Vodafone different?

I'll be ringing them tomorrow, but no matter what they say to me it won't alter the fact that I was unable to use my phone in Korea.

On the plus side - at least I didn't get any stupid phone calls from people in the middle of the night!

I've owned Vbulletin licenses for years.
It's a great product.

BUT

I am seriously considering switching to something else.

Why?

Because they obviously don't care about their existing customers.

Vbulletin emailed license holders earlier this evening to announce a "wonderful" presale event (I'm not even sure if the word "presale" even exists!)

If you have active licenses ie. that you've paid for AND renewed you can "avail' of a "discount" on v4 when it's released (no idea when that will be)

If, however, you have valid licenses that haven't been renewed ie. you paid for the software license but haven't paid the annual renewal fee, you are snookered. Plain and simple. There is no way to renew the v3.* license. You are forced to upgrade to a product that doesn't even exist yet.

To be honest, you're snookered both ways.

Even if you have an active valid owned license you still have to pay at least $130 to be able to get v4! (and that's supposedly a "generous" discount!)

Apart from anything else I'd wonder about the legality of their actions. If they'd been a bit clearer in their communications on this it would be one thing, but it seems to me that they've moved the goalposts significantly.

You could try to follow the debate over on the Vbulletin forums, but it looks like they're dealing with the feedback by deleting threads!

And for the curious, here's the full email they sent:

"Dear Michele Neylon,

We hope your community is enjoying the flexibility and power of vBulletin™.  As always, our goal is to offer a great product at a great price, and we are dedicated to helping you build and grow successful online communities.

Over the last 12 months, we have been building vBulletin 4.0 to be the most powerful forum and social publishing software.  Today, we are proud to introduce the new vBulletin 4.0 Publishing Suite product that includes the power of the vBulletin 4.0 Forums with a seamlessly integrated content management system (CMS) and blogging platform.

As a preferred customer with an active license, we are excited to offer the vBulletin Publishing Suite at a pre-sale discount price of only $130 (over 50% off regular price).  This is a truly limited one-time special offer giving you $120 off the upgrade price but will expire on Friday October 30, 2009.

Learn more about vBulletin Publishing Suite features and pricing on our new website: http://www.vbulletin.com/

Beginning today, we are introducing new a license structure. vBulletin is changing to a one-time owned license fee for each major point release. That means no more annual renewal fees. Once you purchase a major point version, you'll receive maintenance, security and minor point releases for the life of 4.x.

You have the option to keep your current active license until it expires (according to the 12 month term and conditions). For the remainder of your active license, you will continue to receive support and have access to forum software updates, including vBulletin 4.0 Forums.  Once your license expires you will only be able to access the 4 Series software updates by switching to the new one-time owned license. For more information, visit the vBulletin FAQ.

Over the last 10 years, our products have offered an exceptional value and we look forward to bringing you the best and keeping you as a loyal customer. Our team is expanding in number and expertise in order to develop more innovative features and to deliver them faster.  We are investing in exciting development areas such as new products and services for 'Big Boards' and mobile applications and look forward to helping you grow your community.

Sincerely,

The vBulletin Team"


Update 14/10/2009 @ 1030: Some interesting posts over on the Vbulletin forums, though a lot of threads are getting locked or deleted

I've never been happy with the way that Enterprise Ireland's ebusiness mailing list is managed.

It's moderated.
It's not in realtime
The "rules" aren't applied in a uniform or sane manner
People can post anonymously

Earlier this week I decided to unsubscribe myself from the Enterprise Ireland ebusiness list.
I doubt if I'll be going back

Why?

A combination of factors (as mentioned above), but what really did it for me was that not only do they moderate the list but they allow people to impersonate others.

Someone actually posted to the list as "Mickey Mouse" and it was let through as valid.

Enough already.

I don't see why my tax euro should be funding this kind of rubbish when there are much better forums out there.